Dean Rusk

David Dean Rusk (9 February 1909-20 December 1994) was US Secretary of State from 21 January 1961 to 20 January 1969, succeeding Christian Herter and preceding William P. Rogers.

Biography
David Deak Rusk was born in a rural district of Cherokee County, Georgia in 1909. He won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford in 1931, and then taught political science at Mills College, California until the outbreak of World War II. Whilst in Oxford, he developed a dislike of pacifists and isolationists. He enlisted in the US Army and served under General Joseph Stilwell in China from 1944 to 1945. In 1946, he joined the US diplomatic service, and in 1950 became an Assistant Secretary of State concerned with the Far East, strongly backing the case for war in Korea. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed him Secretary of State, an office he held for eight years, during all of which he consistently and dogmatically advocated a policy of US involvement in the Vietnam War and opposition to communist China. After leaving office he became a professor of international law. He died in 1994.